A few weeks ago, I shared that Michael Bivins was finally convicted of charges stemming from his vandalism of Shir Tikvah, Beth Israel, Everybody Eats PDX, and the Muslim Community Center of Portland. On July 10, a jury took four hours to find him guilty of his bias crimes.
His sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 18 at the Multnomah County Courthouse, (1200 SW 1st Ave in Portland) at 2 pm in Judge Eric Dahlin’s courtroom. The sentencing process will last approximately 90 minutes, and we’d like as many community members and allies as possible to attend this sentencing. Showing up serves several functions: It shows support for victims, which includes members of the affected houses of worship and food cart, and those who suffered from other uncharged crimes; It displays to the wider Portland community that our community suffers when bias crimes occur and that they ARE happening in this city; It allows Jewish allies the opportunity to demonstrate their support for us; and it telegraphs to the judge that these crimes affected the community and impacted how we lived, worked, and moved within the greater community during that time.
Many of you have probably forgotten how troubling it was to hear the news that an unknown person was bias-targeting multiple organizations and had yet to be identified and captured. Direct victims of his crimes will be attending, and they welcome your support. If you plan to attend and would like to share that information with victims, please consider letting them know by emailing them at [email protected].
The sentencing portion of the prosecution is when the judge evaluates, in part, the impact of the crimes on their victims and how it will affect the final sentence. For court purposes, the view of who is a “victim” is limited to those directly affected by the crimes. Of course, we know that bias crimes impact whole communities – the court knows this too and has significant discretion in who it chooses to hear from. In this case, the court has stated they are open to a community impact statement, which will be formally read into the record on Sept. 18.
We have been sharing this community statement for several months now, and have 189 signees, and now we’re in the final stretch for accepting additional signatures. We are keeping the names of individual signees anonymous. We will only share the total number of community signatures, which the Prosecution will share with the judge when they read the statement. You can read and sign the impact statement at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ZFShUFL67kpne_I2VC4V8jhUAZUJs82gb4yRefLrcXw/edit .
Lastly, but in some ways most importantly, crimes like these do not get to trial if people don’t report incidents. Sometimes vandalism is brushed off as just part of living in a city, and this approach means investigators potentially lose the ability to connect crimes, identify perpetrators, and craft prosecutions. Please, please - report incidents, thefts, vandalism, comments yelled in passing, etc. Get in touch if you’re not sure if you should report something. I know many incidents aren’t reported, and many folks are working hard to change this. Reporting to me can be made by email to [email protected] or the incident reporting form on the Jewish Federation website athttps://jewishportland.org/security.